The Alice Curse
by ALostWinchester
Summary: Being the daughter of the Great Alice and the Mad Hatter, it's no surprise I'm a little... Unbalanced. In any case I will take over Underland and stop my wretched mother ever returning again! Mostly OC
1. Chapter 1

I call it the Alice curse. She comes, she goes, she doesn't remember, she hates to leave, and he lets her break his feeble heart over and over again. Stupid woman turns my life on its head every time.

"Alicia," my father cooed at me, coaxing me from my hiding place under the table. He was a frightening man, his face as pale as that of a corpse, his hair a wild orange mass beneath his giant top hat, and his eyes a burning bright green that turned orange with the tenor of his voice and accent when he was angry. All the same, he was still my father and I giggled when his crazy head appeared as he pulled up the table cloth and peered at me upside down.

"Yes Dad-Hatter!" I grinned, setting aside my tea, paper and paint brushes.

"I want you to meet someone."

In Underland, that wasn't generally a good thing. Even though the Red Queen had fallen, and the White Queen maintained a quirky kind of peace, there was still madness and trouble in our blood. All of us. New people scared me to death. Even my father's inviting, excited smile couldn't reassure me. He held out his forever-gloved hand and I took it, leaving my tea-painting behind.

It was the first time I had really met my mother. I guess being born was our first meeting, but one of the rebels of the old Red Court dragged her away. Now she was back and my father couldn't have been happier.

"Alicia, I'd like you to meet Alice."

"How do you do." She said, politely curtseying and holding out her hand. I remained hidden behind my father's leg.

"She has... such unusual eyes." She commented to my father.

"And your hair." He said dreamily. I thought about my eye and failed to hear them speaking. I have one brilliant green eye like my father's and one brown eye like my mother's. I could see it now. Her dark brown eyes contrasting with her pale skin and blond hair. It was my eye. She was my mother.

As they talked I eased out of my hiding space to stand by my father, holding his hand. Alice knelt down and I braced myself for anything to happen next.

"Your father tells me, you're my daughter." She began.

"Are you his wife?" I asked, because that was how he so often referred to her. She glanced up to him before replying to me,

"I don't know. I can't remember."

"Why not?"

"That's what happens when you leave Underland." My father said solemnly. I could feel the madness darken his very presence.

"But you came back." I tried to coax him out of his melancholy.

"Yes." He smiled and picked me up, placing me upon his shoulders. "At least for a while."

I watched them share an intense gaze and he held out his hand to her.

"A good time for some tea, I should think." He decided.

I hate tea.


	2. Chapter 2

She tried to stay but after a while she was gone again. My father experienced an absolute fit of depression. It was the March Hare who had to get him out of it. What a fight that was. I hid under the table and clung on to the only stable leg it had for dear life. The sound of smashing plates and china made my ears ring, and their shouting was nonsensical barking over it. Then all was still and quiet.

"It's not easy to love a girl like Alice," the March Hare panted, "But your daughter needs her father – she doesn't know what having a mother is."

"Well she should!"

"But she doesn't! She's a fine wee girl and you're ignoring her! I will not allow it! Alice has always come and gone like the weather, but Alicia is here and she's not going anywhere. You're supposed to look after her."

With that, I heard the padding of the March Hare's feet shrinking into the distance. I waited for one hundred seconds and emerged from my hiding place. My father knelt on the ground, his head hung low and I was careful as I approached. As I got closer, I saw a ring in his hand, similar but smaller to the one around his finger. Tears landed in his palms and I stood in front of his knees. He lifted himself up a little taller and pulled me into his arms. He cried silently, I knew, because my shoulder got wet. I cried for him, and both our shoulders were sodden.

When it was over, he made some tea and as I sipped the boring liquid I could not understand his love for, he fiddled with the ring between the table and his fingertips. Wordlessly he departed from our long garden table and I dipped my finger in the tea now it was cold, and drew sad faces in the cloth. I was so deeply interested in the warping of the fabric under the liquid, I failed to notice his return. The ring floated in front of my eyes as he brought it down in front of my face, standing behind me to better fasten the clasp of the necklace he had made with the ring.

I'm holding it now. Wrapped around my fist I can swing it in circles, making the air whistle from my temporary treetop home. My dad hated when I did that with the necklace at home. I think it reminds him of a horror from his past. Just because I'm the daughter of The Mad Hatter and The Great Warrior Alice, doesn't mean I'm kept naive of their histories. A voice from far below calls to me.

"Coffee!"

I changed it. My name gives me away. I don't want to be famous for having my parents names hooked into my back. I want to be famous for taking over Underland.


	3. Chapter 3

It turned out the White Queen was responsible for continuously sending for Alice to return to Underland. She'd come, she'd go, she'd forget, she'd leave, and the love the land had for her let everyone forget about the family she continued to abandon. The People let her leave. I wished she would never return each time she left but it just kept happening. It was a stuttering cycle that dictated my life and I wouldn't have it any more.

So I killed the queen. Walked into her garden and poisoned that bitch with a crazy little weed I planted in her precious garden. I'm a resourceful little nut when I want to be. Of course, killing the Queen of Underland comes at a pretty heavy price. I'm on the run. There's no ending to that statement I am now forever on the run until I'm ruler of this hole, but at least I'm free of my twisted mother and sick father. He wouldn't have understood what I did.

"Coffee! Come on, let's move out!" Tweedle called and I put the ring away and began my decent. Tweedle was brother to none other than Dee and Dum, his older brothers. His whole family were essentially bald giants, but we're pretty sure there was some mix up about him at birth – he's kind of scaly with a weird green tint about him that makes me think his real family is a sort of parasite. None the less, he's a nice enough guy – maybe a little touchy when it comes to his origins and skin tone – and he learned to live life in a world much larger than he was, so he's pretty nifty too.

I dropped to the forest floor at last and ruffled his hair as I passed him, to distract him while I stole the apple from his hand. I'm the thief among us. My father's passion was tea and sugary sweets to go with it – have you ever heard of a ten year old girl stealing fruit and veg? Anything I wanted I had to steal and hide. I love him, but he is crazy.

Tweedle caught up to me, batted the back of my hand as I took it away from my face, and caught the apple mid-air. He bit down on it with a smirk and I let him have it.

"Where to now?" I asked, having been following Tweedle since narrowly escaping a Gozwingolop. Ugly things. They smell like rot and live off rot, and don't ask me how I ended up near one. The important thing is I escaped and met someone who was going to keep moving – keeping me off the radar until I found somewhere safe to hide. He didn't know what I'd done. He didn't know my real name. My portrait was everywhere but I didn't look like the girl in it. I looked healthier – less tea and cake – and I'd cut my hair, including giving myself a wonky fringe. I wore men's clothes and let people believe I was a man when they were too stupid to see I wasn't – or I was too clever to show it.

Tweedle didn't talk about my masculine attire, and in turn I didn't bring up his skin.

We'd fallen into many unwritten rules in our time together. He sang at night to the camp fire and I fell asleep listening. I packed the bags and cleaned his cooking in the morning. He led the way and I didn't drift off without him anywhere; he found it unnerving. We never washed together, and we took turns sewing all the wear and tear of our clothes together.

Then there was the game.

As we walked we called out words. Any words. We ran out of things to discuss quickly and it sort of just happened. Even in company you can feel lonely travelling, so talking gibberish helped.

The shrubs were getting thick in the forest – I pulled out my axe and he had his hatched in hand, hacking at the plant life. When he stopped, I stopped.

"I think it's thinning out." He announced and pushed on. I started grumbling to myself. Hard work made me cranky, and he'd stopped playing the game when my random words devolved into insults. On we hacked and just before I raised the axe at his neck, he broke through the shrub-wall.

It was the castle of the Red Queen. It was obvious; the diamonds, clubs, spades and heart in the structure gave it away immediately. Covered in wildlife and powerfully silent, the White Queen had allegedly destroyed the castle. Knowing the Queen, it must have been a gradual destruction she was doing, using magic to direct the trees and vines to the architecture of her sister's house. Sure, it was an effective way of making sure the place was unreachable, but it was slow. I must have cut her magic trick short with her death, allowing Tweedle and me to break through the magical wall of shrubs.

I stepped forward but Tweedle moved his arm out, his palm open towards me signalling not to move. He listened and I turned to survey what lay behind us. I had enough time to let my eyes widen before my back was on his back and we were kicked like dominos over a cliff.


End file.
